Three weeks in, I realized something embarrassing: my ring finger and pinky were basically useless. Like genuinely couldn't move independently. I'd try to lift my ring finger and my whole hand would tense up like I was making a claw.
Thought something was wrong with me. Turns out it's normal. Those two fingers share tendons. They're naturally weaker and less independent than the others. But "normal" doesn't mean you can ignore it. Weak fingers will limit what you can play forever if you don't train them.
Here are the exercises that actually fixed this for me.
The 5-finger scale. Boring but essential. Put your right hand in C position. Play C-D-E-F-G, one finger per note, going up. Then G-F-E-D-C coming back down. Do it slow. Like one note per second slow. Listen for evenness – each note should be the same volume, same length. Do this 2 minutes right hand, 2 minutes left hand, every day.
Finger independence drill. This one sucks but it's probably the most effective thing I ever did. Put your right hand in C position. Hold down all five notes at once. Don't let go. While holding everything down, lift ONLY your thumb and play that C. Put it back down. Now lift only finger 2 and play D. Continue through all five fingers.
Fingers 4 and 5 will fight you. Your ring finger will try to drag your pinky along. That's the point. You're teaching them to move independently. Takes weeks to get smooth at this.
Contrary motion scales. Once you can do the 5-note pattern with each hand separately, try this: both hands starting on C, moving in opposite directions. Right hand goes up while left hand goes down. This builds hand independence – probably the most important skill for playing real music. If you're struggling with hand coordination, I wrote more about it in the left hand problem.
The table tap. Not even at the keyboard. Put your hand flat on a table. Lift just your thumb as high as you can without lifting other fingers. Hold 5 seconds. Put it down. Do each finger. Ring finger will barely move. Pinky will shake. I did this watching TV like a weirdo.
How long each day? About 5-10 minutes of exercises before working on anything else. My warmup was: 2 minutes scales both hands, 2 minutes finger independence drill, 2-3 minutes chord transitions. Maybe 7 minutes total. Doing it every single day compounds fast.
After a month, my ring finger actually did what I told it to. After three months, my pinky stopped feeling like dead weight.
Hard truth: your ring finger will always be your weakest. Evolution didn't plan for piano. Accept it. Work with it.
Don't skip this stuff. I know it's boring. You want to play songs. But every time I tried to learn something harder, I'd hit a wall my fingers couldn't get past. The fix was always the same: go back to basics.
Once your fingers are cooperating, check out my guide to first songs. And for a full practice structure, I wrote about building a routine that sticks.
Pianote has some additional finger independence exercises if you want more variety.